Oppositional Defiance as Creative Practice: Four Thoughts
This is a time to shine a light, if not on the world we want, then on a disco ball that refracts and distorts the one they are trying to force onto us.
By Lisa Loop
You might be exhausted and hopeless right now. Makes sense. Watching the world burn is super depressing. But if you have oppositional defiance, as I do, the idea of letting them rob us of our personal sovereignty is deeply infuriating. I say, nah. We’re not going out like that.
As a lifelong Coastal Elite™, I’ve been around a couple of billionaires. Cliché as it sounds, life is not easy for them. It is almost impossible for a super-rich man to feel settled. Hypercompetitive and wrecked by hedonistic treadmilling, everyone around him is hyping the good snake oil, the sweetest cuts. Great wealth, which as we all can see can equate to unfathomable power, is a soul destroyer. Perspective dissolves for all but the most grounded. I maintain that the fancy survivalist compounds are less to escape the apocalypse, more about hiding from the guillotine.
We are the lucky ones. No one is trying to race us to Mars. What we have cannot be purchased with any amount of cryptocurrency, the priceless commodities of unconditional love, well-earned respect, and sincere interdependence. So, we have an assignment to understand. I offer four thoughts:
Fight an honest fight
I keep thinking about the Terrence Malick film, The Thin Red Line, (based on the James Jones 1962 novel) about soldiers in the Pacific during World War II. The character of Private Bell, (Ben Chaplin,) gets through the sticky jungle horrors by dreaming of his wife. Unlike some of his buddies, he behaves honorably and survives. But she is unable to withstand the strain and leaves him for another man. In the end, you know he still came out okay, because he is a good man, and she didn’t deserve him. His reward is dodging the bullet.
We can behave in a way that bears out for us, when the battle is over. They deal in corruption and cruelty. We deal in an honest fight. In the end, they do not stand a chance.
Create, organize, disrupt.
This is the moment to let fear melt into the larger imperative, to be devious, resourceful, and determined. They have wealth, power and technical prowess, but we have numbers and conviction. Look at what happened with TikTok. (I am referring to the chilling effect of millions of users choosing to voluntarily donate their information to another Chinese company, Red Note, rather than let Zuck force them onto his platforms. The virtual meeting of human beings put the lie to familiar, hostile caricatures. Plus, the Chinese Spy meme was hilarious, an irreverent joke shared while they tried to regain control of the classroom. You know what happened, complete capitulation. They hate being laughed at.)
We have capabilities we are only beginning to discover. They cannot stop us from sharing our notes and working together.
Tolerate imperfections
This is a time of estrangement from those who flirt with taking our rights. Fair enough. I have limited sympathy for a bunch of craven losers telling themselves they’re righteous.
But having said that, we need to rethink cancel culture. It permeates the side that cares about doing harm, not the side that desperately wants to. It has become performative. It irritates the groups it purports to defend. There are exceptions, obviously. But consider this.
I know three regular young people who have had their lives ruined by accusations they had no means to refute. Did they say or do something unacceptable? No one will ever know for sure. But the current moral panic has reared up to demonize them.
Watching someone you love be shunned, not only locally but on the internet, is horrible. Suicide was on the table. These were regular, possibly misbehaving but not criminal kids, now adults with a deep wound to carry around, a lesson in stoning.
What I mean to say is, we would be better off with Al Franken.
Know what you are opposing.
During the time of ACAB, I was forced to un-friend my longtime mentor and teacher. He was power-posting obviously Russian-made propaganda portraying the police as benign helpers. Cute vignettes of uniformed officers tying the shoes of little brown children, stopping traffic for ducklings, etc. Though he is Native American and a lifelong radical, his personal experience with cops, as a rancher in rural Oregon, was positive. He felt called to defend them. I could not stand to watch him carry Putin’s water. It felt like elder abuse. It broke my heart. How many people have been unknowingly influenced by similar means?
Of course, some are true believers, who imagine themselves walking a path of destiny. But their project has nothing to do with their stated narratives. It is rooted in a desire to prove the masculine energy they crow about. (See: Curtis Yarvin, J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel, et al.) It has nothing to do with us. It is the latest fetish object for men too convinced of their own brilliance to understand that they will never hold back our tide. Their joy comes from attention-seeking, and thus they can be pushed back on in devious ways. Gray-rocking (i.e. acting bland, refusing to feed their dopamine addiction by engaging in drama) is more effective than slamming the door in their face. It takes strength to be non-reactive when they try to enrage you. But isn’t it satisfying?
Refusing to get into a slappy fight makes it easier for cultists to rejoin reality when they realize that they are not the beneficiaries of this scam. A great America! But not for thee, silly.
The opposite of depression is vitality. Let’s move into the part of this story where our superpower is revealed, meaning our humanity, our connectedness, and our joy. This is a time to shine a light, if not on the world we want, then on a disco ball that refracts and distorts the one they are trying to force onto us. A sparkling moon made of our collective will.
In the words of David Bowie, who performatively sold the “rights to his soul”, possibly the first and best crypto currency—let’s sway. For fear your grace should fall. For fear tonight is all. You could look into my eyes. Under the moonlight, this serious moonlight.
Let’s dance.
Lisa Loop (MFA UCR/PD) has published in NBC.com/THINK, The Coachella Review, Kelp, Ballast, 34th Parallel, HerStry, 805 Literary, Gastropoda, and other places. A former Hollywood creative exec originally from Seattle, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their elderly Aussie Shephard mix. Links to work at Lisaloop.com
Coming soon
Next week:
A meditation on the surreality of getting young kids ready for bed while worrying about the fate of American democracy. From writer John Houston.
Later this month:
Thoughts from an American living abroad on observing Trump 2.0 from a distance
To-do list
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LoL as I read this. So clever. I think I’m doing #2.